Trees 2: The Root of All Evil (2004) User Reviews (9)

"Those tree's aren't human!" Absolutely terrible low budget rubbish.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 6 April 2007]

The Root of All Evil starts just outside the small American town of Hazelville where local resident Fang (Tom Erb) & his gang break into a National Forestry Service area & cut down various pine trees so he can sell them to the residents of Hazelville as Christmas tree's. Meanwhile Max Cooper (Phil Gardiner) has been trying to convince the authorities that the events of Trees (2000) actually happened, in yet another attempt he travels to Hazelville again to team up with another survivor from the original forest Ranger Cody (Kevin McCauley) who just wants to forget all about killer tree's. But when a local senator is killed on a ski slope Max insists a killer great white pine tree, or a 'Pinus Strobus', was responsible & he fears every house in Hazelville may have one in the run to Christmas...

Co-written, produced & directed by Michael Pleckaitis I have a really hard time understanding how anyone can genuinely enjoy a low budget piece of crap such as The Root of All Evil, to be honest this isn't much more than a glorified home video. The jokey script by Pleckaitis & Jim Lawter seems to exist for no other reason than to parody Jaws (1975) by using killer tree's instead of a shark & it's sequels as well as a few other notable films, from the Ranger whose name is Cody which is an obvious reference to Roy Scheider's character in Jaws the police Chief Brody, there's the selfish Mayor who refuses to do anything for fear of bad publicity, there's the blurred photo's which Cody believes is solid proof but no one else agrees, they even refer to the killer tree's as great white pine's & there are other numerous homages littered through The Root of All Evil which I can't be bothered to go into. The character's are awful, the dialogue just as much & once the initial joke wears off which doesn't take too long I can assure you this is a pretty painful film to try & sit through & at over 100 minutes it outstays it's welcome. The only positive thing I can say about it is that there are a couple of occasions where the parody works & it's almost amusing but these are few & far between I'm afraid.

Director Pleckaitis actually does a reasonable job & to be fair to it The Root of All Evil looks reasonably professional. However the CGI computer effects are absolutely awful, unless you have literally a multi million budget you just cannot produce convincing CGI effects & they almost always turn out terrible & The Root of All Evil is no exception. The killer tree's themselves look rubbish & then there's a huge monster thing at the end which looks & moves like it belongs in some cheap 90's video game. There is no gore whatsoever apart from some fake blood. It's certainly not scary, there's no tension & it's definitely not funny so why does a film like this actually exist?

With a supposed budget of about $150,000 the filmmakers probably did the best they could on a small amount of money but my argument is that doesn't excuse it from being crap & not worth spending good money on to watch. The acting sucks & McCauley who plays Ranger Cody looks very much like Roy Scheider which I doubt is a coincidence.

The Root of All Evil the sequel to Trees that nobody wanted is rubbish, I'm sorry the low budget doesn't excuse it from being painful to sit through, definitely one to avoid.

Catacomb of Creepshows #12 (of 50) or playing the sap

[movieman_kev · 3/10 · 25 September 2012]

Most of the main cast of the Jaws spoof "Trees" return for this sequel that adds Horshack to the mix. This time around the main villain are Christmas trees. This film, while having its moments comes nowhere near as good as the first film. It goes off on tangents fairly often and just isn't as funny. Whereas I found myself laughing or chuckling at a good 80% of the original, I managed to laugh less here, even though it was a bit of a longer movie. It's humorous but some of the sub-plots and even some characters could've been left on the cutting room floor without harming the film in the least bit. And those flashbacks could've been done away with to as long as I'm on the subject.

Beware!

[kaluninja · 1/10 · 5 April 2006]

Buyer beware! There are only 2 comments about this film on IMDb (before this one) and both appear on the front cover of the film! I'd have been gutted if it were my £4 forked out on this shower of excrement! This movie is TERRIBLE and certainly isn't funny! It could easily have been completed inside one day and doesn't meet the unintentionally funny requirement which makes similarly badly produced films like troll 2 far more worthwhile. The humour is deliberate and at the same time unfunny, I have no idea who this kind of film is made for! Went on for far too long and an ending never seemed likely to arrive until our audience was spared by the "to be continued..." text. Killer Christmas trees has so much potential - Why did the blind girl get cured by a bit of chlorine! Why does where's waldo bloke simply not care at all that his wife is getting hounded by rich bloke? Why do the trees kill some people but turn others into rubber figurines? This film was punishing!

I wasted 50p on this; what a sap!

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 5 July 2010]

Flesh-eating, genetically mutated trees are running rampant in the ski resort of Hazelville; Ranger Cody (Kevin McCauley) and botanist Max Cooper (Phil Gardiner) try to alert the locals to the danger, but their progress is hampered by Bentley and Royce (Brandi Coppock and Brian Reid), two National Forestry Service agents who are part of a conspiracy to cover up the existence of the carnivorous Great White Pines.

If you haven't already twigged from the above synopsis, The Root of all Evil, from writer/director Michael Pleckaitis, is a dumb, low-budget parody of Jaws, only with man eating trees instead of sharks—which sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but isn't.

Although Pleckaitis does a commendable job with both the direction and editing, his scriptwriting skills are far less impressive: the characters are weak spoofs of those in Spielberg's classic movie (Cody rhymes with Brody, Cooper with Hooper, and there's even another character called Squint!), the dialogue is terrible, and the humour is dreadfully puerile. To make matters even worse, the cast are simply awful (the trees are less wooden than the actors), and the monster-tree special effects are embarrassing (achieved by z-grade CGI that would have looked bad in a mid-90s video game).

If the approach taken had been much trashier, with outrageous OTT gore and nudity to help compensate for its crappier qualities, then this might have been a blast—a demented nutzoid effort destined for cult status. As it stands, however, it's an unmitigated disaster.

Ugh

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 24 December 2021]

Trees was Jaws, substituting Sheriff Cody for Brody], botanist Max Cooper for oceanographer Matt Hooper and lumberjack named Squint for, you already yelled it out, Quint. But hey - there's certainly a sequel in here, as Ranger Cody goes to live in a resort town that is soon battling an army of government-created genetically enhanced trees that eat humans and get loose over the holidays.

Yes, that is Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter. And this is definitely in the Troma school of a movie that's aware of how dumb it is and going deep to be even dumber.

I'm all for the idea of killer tree movies. There's already Day of the Triffids, The Happening, The Guardian, The Crawlers and as bad as some of those are, they sustain interest and entertain much better than this movie.

Imagine hearing a bad joke and laughing at how well it's told. Now just imagine if someone tells the same joke with no delivery and timing.

That's this movie.

Conformation that less is more !!!!

[CorblimeyGuvnors · 2/10 · 25 January 2015]

This is the follow up to the 2000 effort Trees, which was a homage to Jaws.

This, however, tries to flesh out the story. In the original the town of Hazlewood is terrorized by a great white pine. In this the town is beset by a horde of Killer Christmas trees.

I did think that the original was a bit interesting, but this did not live up to that one. It looks like this had a bigger cast and more in the budget and the general look of the film was more professional. However if there was any film that shouted out "less is more" then it's this one. I feel that showing the Killer Christmas trees so frequently and full frame was a mistake, as the CGI that was used for this effects was poor and instead of adding anything, just made it look silly.

The cast seem to take it seriously enough, but I really struggled through this one. In the films defense. This may have been due to the poor sound quality on my copy of the DVD and I really struggled to hear what was going on, which did not help.

Funny. Really, really funny!

[bravabrut · 10/10 · 14 November 2004]

This movie is a must see. Watch Trees then watch Root of all evil. You will be on the ground laughing. "Horshack" Ron Palillo did a great job as a wimpy rich man. The rangers wife did great snubbing the husband for the money man. She was awesome. The lumberjacks were hilarious running around trying to kill killer trees in the streets and at the gym. The big guy Fang was a tough customer, and his partner Petey was pretty funny too. He farted everywhere he went. Cheers to the hottie playing the agent. Vavavoom! The graphics were totally cool too. The last time I went camping I was very cautious about how the wind blew and which way the trees were migrating. Those sons of saplings ate my picnic.

A funny indy B-movie!

[Roanka · 7/10 · 15 August 2004]

This sequel to "Trees" is far better than the original. The addition of some movie professionals has helped improve the product. The plot of this movie picks up where Trees left off. Ranger Cody now has a fear of trees. When killer Christmas trees invade the town of Hazelville no one believes the ranger. Mayhem and chaos ensue. I live in the town where this was filmed, and the sight of killer Christmas trees running down Main Street is absolutely hilarious! The second film in a "treelogy," this is a great movie to watch on a cold, rainy night.

A hilarious and inspired sequel to the funny low-budget spoof "Trees"

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 11 March 2007]

A bunch of genetically altered killer mutant trees created by the nefarious National Forrestry Service bump off several folks in the sleepy rural hamlet of Hazelville. Noble, but traumatized Ranger Mark Cody (affable Kevin McCauley) and eager botanist Max Cooper (the equally engaging Philip Gardiner) try to warn everyone to no avail. Come Christmas Eve the killer trees form into a large group and lay waste to the town. Capably directed by Michael Pleckaitis, with rather grainy, but pretty polished cinematography by Andrew Gernhard and Chuck Gramling, a nicely deadpan tone, cool and creepy CGI-animated tree monsters with gnarly glowing green eyes, several sidesplitting killer tree attack scenes, a nifty pseudo-serious shuddery'n'spooky score by Tom DeStefano, likable characters, a handy helping of graphic gore, and a witty and clever script by Pleckaitis and Jim Lawter, this cheerfully inane and ridiculous fright flick parody makes for an enjoyably campy hoot to watch. The game acting from a personable cast constitutes as another substantial asset, with especially solid work by Mary Ann Nilan as Cody's loyal, long-suffering wife Helen, Ron Palillo (Horshack on "Welcome Back, Kotter") as smarmy sniveling wimp rich jerk Dougie Styles, Trish Dunn as feisty blind girl Darla, Peter Randazzo as demented lumberjack Squint, and Brandi Lynn Coppock and Brian Reid as a couple of pesky NFS agents. The lengthy last third with a rampaging army of lethal and ferocious trees attacking the townspeople is absolutely gut-busting. Good, silly tongue-in-cheek fun.